The rise and fall of the Ming Dynasty was punctuated by many important- even critical- events that have influenced history, and continue to influence the modern world…
She stared blankly at the computer, the blinking laptop cursor taunting her from the same place it'd been in for… 37 minutes, now. Stupid, sadistic cursor. Stupid, masochistic Jordan. She wasn't even sure what she'd written so far, only that it definitely didn't make sense… which might be an advantage, if Professor Lardasch (Lard-ass) couldn't read it, he couldn't fail it, right? Only she could be behind before school even started. Who even gave summer assignments? She'd written…. (check word count) 147 words. Only 1,857 to go.
Her honey hair was already frizzing, protesting the short-nailed fingers that were already running through them, stressed. She looked like a demented aerobics instructor, wearing a fat headband with tufts of blonde-streaked brown frizz spilling over it.
"Joey!" A hoarse voice yelled at her from the hallway. The girl rolled her eyes, yanking her fingers through her honey-brown hair one more time- she recognized him even from the hall.
"Studying!" She yelled back.
"Not anymore." The voice was closer now, just beyond the door.
"But, uh," think of something, anything! You don't want to do it, he just wants your help… you can't fail before the semester even starts… "I'm naked! I was running, and now, uh, I'm doing some… yoga." Yoga? YOGA was the best I could come up with?? "Is that supposed to stop me?" She could hear him chuckle even as she saw the doorknob turn. "Dammit- you got my hopes up. Your Jew fro is frizzing." The whine came from a blonde boy as his ice blue eyes took in the stained gray tank top, hideous orange sports bra peaking out from underneath, hair wild and black almond-eyes wider. Yep, the only time Joey looked this manic was… "World history? Wh- are those my boxers?" She looked down, and quickly rolled her chair under the desk, hiding her legs from view.
"No. Only I'm allowed to make fun of my Jewishness, asshole."
"Uh-huh." The boy smirked, cold eyes warming slightly in a private laugh. "You just wanna get into my pants."
"That's so wrong on so many levels- like, incest and just, ew." The boy laughed now, picking up a dirty sock as he sat on her roommate Cameron's bed and throwing it at her.
"As if I'd still be alive if you were related to me- I would've killed myself from the shame, the dishonor…" He trailed off theatrically, and she snorted.
"Reid, I remember when you couldn't pee standing up."
"Yeah, but you could." She smiled at that- their smirks were nearly identical.
"Call it a talent. Do you know anything about the Ming Dynasty?" The boy was tossing a rubber band ball against the wall and catching it as it bounced back. He shrugged noncommittally and she turned away from him, rubbing her temple with the palm her head rested on.
"Super tits seduce young men quickly."
"What?" She turned to the boy.
"Super tits seduce young men quickly. Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing." She looked surprised, and he smirked again.
"Fuck it," she said, and closed her laptops screen. Stupid cursor. "Fuck it," she repeated. "I'm gonna fail anyways."
"Yeah, well, that means you'll get to hang out with me next year, after Brain and Co. go to college." She grinned as the thought of the youngest boy, Tyler, going off to Columbia. He'd surprised everyone but Reid and Jordan- who'd both been copying his homework for years-when he was accepted early decision to the Ivy League school, and Pogue and Caleb were going to Boston, BU.
Younger than all four of the boys by almost a year, Jordan had always spent more time with Reid and Tyler than anyone else- even girls her own age. Her mother and Reid's had been best friends since high school, she and Reid had grown up across the street from each other and she remembered Isabel as much as she remembered her own mother Naomi in memories of her childhood, as much as she remembered Pogue, Caleb, Reid and Tyler. Jordan had stuck out like a sore thumb from the four Sons of Ipswich. While they were fair-skinned, pink-cheeked and sturdy children she'd been knobby-kneed, unbrushed hair crazy and eyes wild, black on her face, such an odd shade of golden olive. She remembered most of her childhood in snapshots: Caleb, nearly three, holding the tiny girl even though he was tiny himself. Tyler's face to their left twisted into a wail as Reid grinned triumphantly at the camera, having wrenched Tyler's favorite train from him as his hair stuck straight up, nearly translucently pale. Pogue held three blocks in his lap- two red and one orange- as he sat to Caleb's right, watching Jordan seriously as she giggled, Caleb tickling her like he might a baby sister. People often thought Caleb and Jordan were related- they were both tanner by far than the other three, and though her hair was much lighter their eyes were black, mirror images- Jordan's danced with mischief far more than the serious Caleb.
Joey, an arm around Tyler on her right and Reid on her left, with her hair up in an awful side ponytail, braces glinting metally as their awkward phases were immortalized for anyone who picked up the Polaroid. Reid was packing some major orthodontia too, hair gelled into an NSYNC-like atrocity. He'd tried to frost the tips, even, but his hair had been as light as the dye. Tyler was wearing his favorite jacket- chartreuse, and hideous- and Caleb, at the left edge of the frame, looked ridiculously geeky in those khaki plastic pants that unzipped below the knee to become shorts, with green and red trainers. It must've been fifth grade, but it felt like lifetimes ago. Joey's eyes reached just beyond the camera, mouth open as she smiled at Pogue, taking the picture.
The first day of high school. Tyler's mom Lena had gotten them all together, waiting for Tyler's cousin Johnny, a "cool" senior, to take them to Spenser for the first time so they didn't have to go with their parents. Sitting in a row on the curb in front of Tyler's house, they didn't realize the picture was being taken. Slightly fuzzy in the background, Tyler's gray tabby, Pumpkin (who knew?) was licking what appeared to be his balls- something Joey and Reid liked to point out every time they saw the picture. Joey was telling a story, nearly whacking Tyler in the head as she gesticulated wildly with her sharp-elbowed arms. Caleb's head was tipped back to her left, laughing a belly laugh with his eyes closed. Pogue was facing Joey, squatting with easy grace in the street as he watched the girl, a smile on his face. Reid looked almost cat-like as he stared off to the side, tense and alert at something Joey would never be able to see. Tyler was studying his hands, facing directly forward. Joey knew him too well not to detect the subtle signs of nervousness scrawled across her friend's face- the tightening along his jaw, the slight widening in his already-wide eyes. Joey had lost baby fat, looking strangely adult- Caleb and Pogue already possessed the lithe bodies of adults, lean and strong swimmers. Reid had always been Reid- whip-thin and wiry. Only Tyler was more child than adult; eyes innocent and body soft. This picture was who they were: Joey the entertainer, Tyler the worrier, Reid intense as always while Caleb expressed any emotion he felt freely, and Pogue. Pogue, cracking a smile for one of the few people who could coax one from him.
A month ago, Joey's seventeenth birthday. Her black hair darker than her black shirt, her dark eyes sparkled, the irises for once visible, a dark and ruddy brown encircling her pupils. She smiled big, shrinking from Reid as he was shown mid-lunge, a hand full of cake outstretched towards her face. She was reaching for Tyler, trying to hide behind the slender boy even as he, too, shrunk from the impending cakesplosion. Joey's mother stood with Reid's by the stairs, Naomi's black hair and dark eye shining out of pale skin, offsetting Isabel's cool, Grace Kelly look-alike beauty - their children so much like them as dark-eyed Joey ran from Ice Prince Reid. Joey'd always wished she looked more like her mother- had her dark hair and pale skin; her soft, slightly ethereal curved features. Like a sea creature, Naomi was stunning where Joey was slightly bonier, more angular. Pogue stood behind the cake table, expression and eyes inscrutable, closest to the mothers while Caleb stood on the table's opposite side, between Reid and the cake now. All eyes were on the flying cake, except for Johnny's, who'd held the camera steady as he snapped the shot.
"Joey? Joey. Joe. Jordan!" Her eyes snapped from the closed laptop to Reid, his icy eyes even cooler now with impatience.
"What?" She snapped back at the boy.
"Are you coming?"
"Where?" Reid rolled his eyes as though he was trying to speak English to a capybara, or something.
"I just told you. Come on."